Time Lapse Video slower then 1 frame per second.

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Guest

Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 4:11 pm

I didn't think it would be this hard to find.

I am studying snow melt in northern Canada and I want to use a DVR
system to record the video at a rate slower than 1 frame per second.

4 frames per hour would be fast enough.

My problem is the computer will be running on it's own for several
months about 1000 km away from where I am. I have a satellite internet
VPN connection to control it, but it only gets 100 kbps upload.

At 1 fps for the 8 video cameras it takes more than 5 minutes to
download 5 minutes of video. So I will never be able to catch up.

I want the system to automatically record 4 frames per hour and save it
to the hard drive in some format (i.e. Mpeg, sequential image files,
etc). So I can log on over the VPN and down load the images.

A cheap or freeware package would be nice, since I'm footing the bill
for this myself. It's a personal add on to another research project,
but I pay for something that works well.

Watching snow melt just doesn't pay the big bucks it used to.

RoboRealm

Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 12:22 am

Guest

Try downloading RoboRealm from http://www.roborealm.com and use the
"Loading/Saving->Write Image" module after the "Other->Timer" module.
Using these two modules you can write (.gif, ppm, jpg, etc) images once
a day, once a year, etc. Plus it is free too so that should meet your
price requirements!

Enjoy.

STeven.
www.roborealm.com

Henry

Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2006 9:39 pm

Guest

jgervais1@gmail.com wrote:

Quote:

I didn't think it would be this hard to find.

I am studying snow melt in northern Canada and I want to use a DVR
system to record the video at a rate slower than 1 frame per second.
....
I want the system to automatically record 4 frames per hour and save it
to the hard drive in some format (i.e. Mpeg, sequential image files,
etc). So I can log on over the VPN and down load the images.

A cheap or freeware package would be nice, since I'm footing the bill
for this myself. It's a personal add on to another research project,
but I pay for something that works well.

You don't need to use a monolithic package for this.

Use the camera SDK or some library to write a small program that just
saves a single picture to a file. Wrap this in a shell script / batch
file that does some basic error checking (did the last grab finish OK
or has it hung? Is there enough disk space free?) and launch this at
the required times using the OS' scheduler.

You can then be a bit more flexible and e.g. capture 8 images an hour
in the day but none at night, etc.

Hth

Henry

Guest

Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 2:25 am

Thanks STeven, I'm going to try out that one from RoboRealm.

I did finally find a package that that fits. (with some reservations)
http://www.argussurveillance.com/product_info.php?products_id=34

So far it's been working for 5 days without a hickup. Only 360 more to
go.

It was a bit hit and miss at first. I used the drivers that came with
the cards, but I read further on the web site and they had some
recommended drivers that worked with my cards.

At $39 I don't mind paying that out of pocket just for the head ache
releaf.

One thing does concern me. The program comes with a second program
called watchdog that keeps track of the program to see if it locks up.
It reboots the program if it locks up, or reboots the computer if it
won't come back. I'm curious to see how often it has to resort to this.

Thanks Henry, I did think about writing an app, but I'm just too
overloaded to learn something else.

Guest

Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 2:08 pm

So far, a week or more and it's still running fine. However I tried
using the load as an XP service at boot option and it blue screened on
me. I ended up dumping everything and reformating.
It could have been a conflict with all other software I downloaded and
tried. I'm running it a boot from the Startup menu. It's working fine
so I'm not going to touch it.

jgervais1@gmail.com wrote:

Quote:

Guest

Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 9:55 am

I just purchased the software.
The demo would have worked but it's better to be ligit. :)

The price was higher then I thought initially.

http://www.argussurveillance.com/index.php?cPath=25&osCsid=c0512b76104c269140f72a4431e08955

Argus DVR Software
1 camera version is US $39.00
8 camera version is US $39.00 plus US $79.00 = $118

They send the registration key by email the following day.

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